The godfather of shock rock, the man who burst out of a coffin in a leopard-skin suit clutching a smoking skull named Henry, spent his childhood obsessively studying Chopin and dreaming of becoming an opera singer like Paul Robeson. Born Jalacy Hawkins in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1929 and raised in a boarding house in the foster care system, he told his music tutor he was only learning the rules so he could break them. After forging a birth certificate to join the Army at 16, he built a mythology of tall tales about Yale, a Cincinnati conservatory, and Korean War combat, then played keyboards for guitarist Tiny Grimes in Philadelphia before signing with OKeh Records in 1956.

This episode reconstructs the drunken 1956 session that turned a planned elegant ballad, I Put a Spell on You, into a grunting, shrieking masterpiece that reportedly sold ov ...